In today's communication environment, communication devices must support a number of functions in order to implement various desired applications and to satisfy the ever-increasing expectations of users. For example, one or more external applications may need to monitor or control events on a device, monitor the device status, control the device and its current capabilities, or render their user interfaces on the device. In addition, users often wish to multi-task while participating in a communication, such as a conference call, and perform one or more additional tasks on the same or a different device than supports the primary communication. Such tasks may or may not be related to the communication. Examples of the tasks that are related to the communication include changing one or more call settings, obtaining information about the other participants involved in the communication, sending or receiving messages or being notified of events, such as messages that are received during the communication, all without interrupting the primary communication. Examples of tasks that are not related to the communication include the invocation of external applications from the device and interaction with these applications through the device. Thus, to support multi-tasking, even further functionality may be required and the desired functionality may be spread among a number of devices. Supporting such functionality on communication devices, especially traditional and unmodified communication devices, as well as spreading the functionality among a number of devices proves to be a formidable challenge.
A number of techniques have been proposed or suggested to assist a user during a communication. For example, Avaya Inc. has proposed a WiVa interface that provides a telephone interface into a specific application called POCCS that includes the WiVa interface. The WiVa interface follows a user request/response model where the user speaks a predefined command that initiates a desired action by the WiVa interface. For example, the WiVa interface allows a user to initiate a call or to obtain information regarding, for example, the availability or location of another person. In addition, VCON Corp. has proposed a system, referred to as VCON Interactive Group Communication System 2000 (ICG 2000), that allows text messages sent between users to be rendered as a voice “whisper” if the target user is on a call. While such techniques have extended the functionality that is available to users, and have increased user efficiency, they suffer from a number of limitations, which, if overcome, could further extend the utility of communication devices. A need therefore exists for improved methods and apparatus for providing virtual assistants or agents to one or more participants in a communication.